


The Reign of Sam Winchester

by itallstartedwithdefenestration



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2017-12-31 03:35:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itallstartedwithdefenestration/pseuds/itallstartedwithdefenestration
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jess never died in a fire. Sam graduated Stanford and became one of the top lawyers in the country. But he was always destined to be Lucifer's, and this time Dean's not in his way saying 'no'.</p><p>[CURRENTLY BEING RE-WRITTEN. SEE INSIDE NOTES FOR DETAILS]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I abandoned this fic after four chapters and I've never been able to stop feeling guilty about it, mostly because it was supposed to be one of the most epic fics I ever wrote, and I really really loved the idea and had worked hard on planning it out. But unfortunately it didn't end up working out for various reasons and I put a mental hold on the fic and kind of brushed it to the wayside.
> 
> But thankfully now myself and [Hil](http://kngfishergrl.tumblr.com) are kind of collaborating to get both this fic and a fic she's been working on for two years actually _finished,_ and we're hoping that it'll actually work out this time for both of us. And I'm hoping people are still interested in this fic because it got an amazing reception when first posted and this revamping of it is condensing its plotline as well as changing up a few details to make it- well. A little different. You'll see. 
> 
> Thank you all for your patience and I'd like to apologize for leaving this fic hanging for so long~

It’s funny how one little decision someone makes can alter the course of infinity.

An idea can be spun out of thin air, by gods or by God, coalescing and drifting along under one name in particular for millennia until it’s finally ready to be brought forth into the light.

An idea can be meant for one being, the favored son and brightest angel of Heaven, but twisted around and changed into something totally different if the recipient proves to be less than grateful.

The idea of Sam Winchester starts out lovely and fresh as the angel it belongs to, but then Lucifer falls, taking a long, freezing strip of Grace with him in an arc, and the idea of Sam is placed into a completely different pile, intended for something else now. 

And a tiny, almost indiscernible piece of Lucifer’s Grace is ripped away by his Father’s hand and tucked into the same corner as Sam, for all eternity. 

*

**_Approximately two hundred thousand years, seven months, and twenty-four days later_ **

**_Palo Alto, California, USA_ **

“Sam,” Gertrude calls, “someone here to see you.”

Sam’s spine, long and taut under Jess’ nimble fingers, goes tense with something other than arousal, and he backs away from her—the warmth of her mouth and the soft slope of her shoulders. “I don’t get visitors,” he calls back. “Tell whoever it is they’re looking for the wrong Winchester.”

A pause, and Gertrude’s low, matronly voice murmurs something at whoever-the-fuck it is, while Jess curls her fingers around the nape of Sam’s neck and hauls him back in for another kiss. Here, in the back of the bookstore shelves, with the dust and the Lysol and the loose papers floating around, she tastes a little like toothpaste, a little like old novels. It’s an odd combination, but Sam’s had worse, so he doesn’t complain. 

“Hon,” Gertrude calls, and Sam groans into Jess’ mouth, gritting his jaw against some unseen anger and trying so hard to relax his muscles he’s shaking with the effort. “He says he’s the _other_ Winchester.”

 _That_ brings Sam up short.

“Gimme a minute,” he tells Jess, pulling away from her all the way and straightening the hem of his shirt, wiping at his mouth when she’s turned away to highlight some order a customer’s made on a slip of paper. He skirts around teetering piles of books, between three shelves crammed full of tomes about the War of 1812, the American Revolution, and bestsellers, before coming to the front of the store. 

It’s been, what, four years, but he still recognizes Dean instantly and without blinking.

“ _Christ,_ Sammy,” Dean says, after a stretch of silence that might run three seconds too long, “you got tall, you goddamn gigantor,” and then Sam’s being pulled into a hug, tight and crushing and unfamiliar in the firm _honesty_ of it. 

“I’ve always been tall,” Sam mutters against Dean’s shoulder, awkwardly shifting his arms around his brother’s waist until he’s able to hug him back.

Gertrude makes a sound, all motherly and affectionate, and Sam hears her shuffling to the back of the stockroom. 

“What are you doing here?” Sam asks, when he’s finally extracted himself from Dean’s grip. “John’s not dead, is he?” Squares his shoulders, steps a little away from his brother. Doesn’t miss the way Dean’s eyes flash, the set of his jaw, the flare of his nostrils.

“ _Dad_ is fine,” Dean says. “Ain’t seen you in four fuckin’ years though, man. Just thought I’d stop by, y’know? See how you were doing.”

It’s typical Dean bullshit; Sam knows there’s some ulterior motive, there’s always one when it comes to Dean, but he lets it slide, because they’re in public and Gertrude probably doesn’t need to be subjected to a classic Winchester brawl. And it’s probably not the right thing to do, introducing your girlfriend to your brother when he’s got a broken nose and one eye swollen halfway shut. 

“Yeah, okay,” Sam says, placid tone, hooking his thumbs into his belt loops. And then, “Can I introduce you to someone?” because he knows Dean will just light up like a fucking rocket flare if he gets any sort of impression that his freak little brother is finally normal, like everyone else.

Sure enough, Dean grins, bright sudden flash of teeth, and claps Sam on the shoulder. “You’re just full of surprises today, aren’t you,” he says, and it sounds a little sad, a lot forced, but Sam ignores that, and leads Dean into the back of the Stanford bookstore to meet his blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white picket fence-normal girlfriend.

*

They find themselves at Bookman’s Café half an hour later, just Sam and Dean because Jess’ shift isn’t over yet and she doesn’t seem interested in listening in on their conversation anyway. Not like Sam blames her, no fun in rehashing a past as shitty as the Winchesters’ has been. 

“So you’re working at the bookstore,” Dean says conversationally, standing in line with Sam, waiting for white hot chocolate in a mug, croissants and beignets because it’s that sort of day. “Not surprised.”

“How’d you even find me?” Sam asks, digging his thumb into the sharp jut of his hipbone.

Dean gives him an indecipherable look over his shoulder. “Not hard, just asked around campus—‘who’s seen the six-four plaid guy in army boots with hair all over the place?’ Not a lot of guys around here that quite match that description, apparently.”

Sam’s frowning. He doesn’t especially like that about Stanford—or any college, really, he supposes—how open they are. How easy it is to find someone, no matter how hard they’re trying to hide. He swallows, bitter taste of annoyance rising up at the back of his throat, and says, “So you’ve reassured yourself I’m alive, not charged with murder and dating a normal girl, got a four-point-oh and still running on that full-ride scholarship—what the fuck else do you want?” His voice goes harsh at the end, and Dean tenses, but their order is being called now, and there’s a pause while Dean goes and pays with a crumpled car oil-stained twenty. He carries their food to a back table and they sit across from each other, Sam folding his long legs under his chair and Dean staring out the window, fingers already white with powdered sugar from the beignets.

“Honestly, Sam,” Dean says finally, annoyance riding clear over everything else. “Why the hell you gotta be so goddamn paranoid all the time? Maybe I just wanted to come see you, y’know? Catch up—”

Sam lets out a short, sharp laugh. “You haven’t wanted to ‘catch up’ in four fucking years, man.”

“You haven’t exactly been calling my cell every week, either,” Dean retorts, muffling the last word with a giant bite of beignet. 

“At least I have an excuse,” Sam mutters into his mug of hot chocolate, and concentrates very hard on not doing anything like accidentally breaking the ceramic or busting a water main upstairs.

Dean’s glaring at him, but Sam won’t look up. It’s not worth it, he doesn’t know why Dean expected a visit after four years to be any different than it is when they’ve ever been together in the past. They rile each other up and Dean says something harsh and hurtful and Sam breaks something and then they part ways. That’s just how it is, how it’s always been. 

“Did you really think four years in separate states and annual calls on our birthdays would change anything?” Sam asks, vicious and swirling his finger through the mess of sugar on his plate, and Dean lets out a breath; slow, shaky exhale.

“Okay, Sam,” he says after a minute. “Okay, yeah, you’re right, you’ve got a point.” His tone’s gentler than Sam had expected, and he looks up, and Dean’s set his beignet down and is looking at him with raised eyebrows, tiny, ridiculously hopeful smile playing at the corners of his lips. “I just really kinda—I don’t know. Thought I’d come see if you’re still the pain in my ass that you’ve been my whole life.”

Sam spreads his hands out flat on the table. “Yeah,” he says, “pretty much,” and doesn’t smile back, no matter how much he knows Dean wants him to.

“Well.” Dean clears his throat; another bite of food, another drink to swallow it down. “Do you, uh. I mean, if you wanted, we could—there’s a hunt, you know.”

Ah. The ulterior motive. Sam wonders if he should make a note on a legal pad of how long it took Dean to get around to it this time. Decides against it, and steeples his fingers together instead, like he’s seen his pre-law professor do so many times. “A hunt,” he repeats.

“Just a small one,” Dean says. “Over in Jericho; it’s maybe a twelve-hour drive from here, less if we don’t take back roads the whole way there, but then what—”

“—would be the point of taking the Impala,” Sam finishes, just restraining himself from rolling his eyes because god, he has been listening to the same sentence since he was twelve years old. 

Dean grins. “You wanna go?” he asks. “Supposed to be some woman killing off guys on the side of the road or something creepy awesome like that. It would just be us eating cheap diner food and staying in crap motels for a few days, but Dad wouldn’t be there or anything, so you wouldn’t—” He cuts himself off, but Sam knows what he was going to say anyway. He wouldn’t have anyone to pick a fight with. Wouldn’t have anyone to set him off, get him going, risk causing him to lose control.

“I got a law school interview on Monday,” Sam says quietly, trailing his finger over the rim of his mug. “And shifts at the bookstore tomorrow afternoon and Sunday morning.”

“You’d be back before Monday,” Dean says. “And your boss—that lady, whatever the hell she is—she looks like she wouldn’t notice if you ducked out for a few days anyway.” 

“Dean—”

Dean’s gripping his mug tight in both hands now, smile fake and plastered on his face, wild, almost manic glint in his eyes. “Old-fashioned hunt,” he says, cutting Sam off the way he always has. “Can’t say no, Sammy.”

Sam allows those words to rattle around between them, hollow and clanging, and then, deliberately, slowly, he sets his mug down. Watches as it makes a full one-eighty degree spin in front of him, hot chocolate inside barely sloshing around. He knows Dean’s watching too, open-mouthed and angry the way he always gets when Sam does this in front of him. 

“I’m saying no, Dean,” Sam says, when the mug has come to a stop again, and his voice is low, firm.

For once, Dean doesn’t argue. 

*

Sixteen years earlier, there was a fire.

Sam had wanted pizza for dinner, not the pot roast Mary had spent all day making, and when he came in dirty and rumpled from playing outside with Dean he was furious to find no pizza box waiting for him on the table. Tiny six-year-old rage, would’ve boiled over in a few minutes if Dean or their mom could’ve been the one to talk Sam down, but it was John who intercepted him instead, and John was never pleasant or easy around Sam, even then. Their dad yelled at Sam for being ungrateful, insensitive to Mary and all the hard work she was doing around the house, and Sam withdrew in on himself, lower lip sticking out and eyes growing sullen and dark behind his floppy bangs.

Sam was always angry back then; the littlest things would set him off and the rest of the family knew how to stay out of his way when he got mad, Dean even knew how to redirect his focus so that he could let go of whatever it was, but John—John didn’t understand it, and he didn’t want to take the time to try. There was a fight, Sam yelling at the top of his tiny lungs and John losing control and yelling right back, and then Sam got spanked, sent to his room without any supper.

He lay on his back in the room he shared with Dean, staring up at the ceiling and counting cracks until he ran out of numbers, then starting over again at one. He listened to his mom and dad arguing downstairs and fell asleep before Dean came up to escape their fight. One arm was still flung over his stomach, which was growling with hunger by that point, and his dreams were dark red and blistering with heat.

When he woke up, he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t really see either, and he fell off his bed trying to get untangled from his sheets, trying to call for Dean and choking on his brother’s name instead. It was a long time before Dean came running in, grabbing Sam off the floor and dragging him outside, even though he was only four inches taller and weighed maybe fifty pounds more than Sam. They were both coughing, Sam’s eyes searing from the smoke and the heat, and when Dean tried to run back in, yelling _Dad,_ Sam caught his arm. 

It was a long time before John came out, or at least it was to Sam, standing on the front lawn of his burning house with his brother, clutching his arm just in case Dean did anything stupid like try to run again. Mary wasn’t with him, and Dean started crying immediately, which startled Sam because Dean never cried, and then they told him, they said, “Mom’s dead, Sam,” and he cried too, though it was surprising to him, feeling the wetness on his cheeks. 

Afterwards, when the funeral was over and they had gone to stay at Missouri’s for a while until John could find them a more permanent residence elsewhere, Sam told Dean what he’d been thinking since the night of the fire. That the dreams he’d had were almost identical to the way their house had burned down, that the anger he’d felt over the fight was similar to the smell of smoke, the red crackle of flames. Dean hit him—first time ever, with such fury in his eyes—and told him to shut the fuck up, but he also told John. 

John, who had never understood his younger son. Left all the raising of Sam to Mary, the playing with Sam to Dean. John, who had once called Sam ‘abnormal’ when he thought he and his wife were alone. 

John didn’t say anything to Sam about it, but he looked at him differently afterwards, almost fearfully. Dean tried getting Sam to talk to their dad once, “just tell him you didn’t start the fire, just tell him you were playing around when you said that,” but Sam wasn’t sure then and he kept his mouth shut. He had an innate distaste of lying. 

They started moving around a lot, renting out motel rooms in some towns and houses in others. John kept his distance from Sam and spent more time with Dean, and Sam watched them resentfully for the first week, then shrugged it off and went to play with his army men in the backyard of wherever they were staying. He didn’t care what their dad did. 

When Sam was in second grade, he accidentally exploded an entire box of crayons from across the room because the teacher kept criticizing him, saying he was doing his math all wrong even though he knew seven plus seven equals fourteen and fourteen minus eleven is three, not five. 

When he was in fifth grade, the class bullies pushed him around in the cafeteria until he lost control and made a food tray fly into one of their heads. The kid didn’t die, but the Winchesters left town almost immediately afterwards, just to be safe. 

Sixth grade, and Sam made a teacher give him an A on his history paper, just so that he could have something to be proud of. 

That was also the year he found out why they moved around all the time. _Because of you,_ Dean had told him, because Dean was sixteen and resentful of his little brother by then, he’d had six years to brood over the fact that Sam had killed their mom and he wasn’t exactly one for thinking in shades of gray, couldn’t comprehend that six-year-old Sam hadn’t done it on purpose or anything. _We hunt pieces of shit that do freaky things like you, so that maybe we can find whatever it is that made you like this and force it to turn you normal._

Sam felt a flare of irritation in his chest at that—he hadn’t ever been normal, not as far back as he could remember, and whatever John or Dean tried to do wasn’t going to change that—but he really didn’t much care what Dean thought of him, so he just flipped him off and walked out, and a bulb overhead fizzed and popped as he went. He got coerced into learning the hunt a few days later, Dean’s way of apologizing, probably, but he never enjoyed it. Not when he knew that John looked at the monsters they killed and only ever saw his son.

By the time Sam was old enough to apply for a scholarship and get out of their father’s way, he was barely restraining himself from flinging a knife into John’s chest while he slept. Stanford was first choice, always, and Sam got in on a full-ride, packed his things, let Dean drop him off at the bus station in Little Rock just to be nice, and left without looking back so much as once. 

College since then has never been enjoyable, or easy, but it’s something to do. There’s Jess, who doesn’t ask questions and sometimes lets herself get drunk enough to laugh at Sam’s “tricks”. There’s Gertrude, who pays Sam way more wages than what he’s actually due and lets him skip out most shifts he has, if he talks to her first. 

Sometimes there’s Brady, when Sam’s drunk and needs a blowjob in one of the dirty bathrooms in the basement of the law building. 

Most days, Sam wakes up feeling hollowed out and somewhat suicidal, but he always pushes it aside and gets up anyway. 

*

Dean walks with Sam back to the bookstore because it’s on his way to the Impala and he wants to give Sam a proper goodbye, not in some noisy café where everyone can listen in. Gertrude is ringing something up for a student, and Jess is standing on her tiptoes, tongue caught between her teeth as she struggles to reach the shelf where the folders are kept. Dean takes one down easy for her, and then turns to Sam, hands in his pockets, tiny awkward smile plastered on his face again.

“Well,” he says.

“Well,” Sam says.

“It was uh. It was good to see you, man.”

Good to see that you haven’t burned down the entire campus yet, is what Dean means, but Sam bites the words back against the inside of his cheek, cranks up a fake smile of his own. He’s spent twenty-two years perfecting how to look the way other people want him to.

“You too,” Sam says. Even means it, a little, as he wraps his long arms around Dean’s shoulders in what he hopes passes for a hug.

They stay like that for a little while, Dean’s heart thudding slow against Sam’s chest, and then Dean says, “You gotta call more often, Sammy, okay? Not just once a year, y’know?”

“Yeah, Dean, okay,” Sam says, though they both know it’s not going to happen. 

Then Dean shakes Jess’ hand again—“good to meet you, Jessica”—and with a final flash of teeth in Sam’s direction, he walks out. Sam watches him until he’s out of sight, then leans back against the desk, low relieved exhale escaping his lips and lifting his hair off his forehead for a second.

“Rough growing up with him, huh?” Jess asks, wrapping her arms around Sam’s waist from behind, and Sam only goes tense for a second before relaxing into her, turning and catching her belt loops with his thumbs.

“You have no fucking idea,” he mutters.

The rest of the weekend goes smoothly enough—Sam works half his shift on Saturday and convinces Gertrude to let him off the rest of the weekend just so he can go back to his and Jess’ apartment and fuck around on the computer—and then it’s Monday, and he’s taking a gulp of coffee and a bite of Nutri Grain bar and kissing Jess on the cheek before walking the three blocks to his law school interview.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I don't really have a set publication time yet, mostly right now it's just happening as I get ideas for the chapters, but that might change later as the plotline gets more fleshed-out. 
> 
> I really hope you guys like this one, it was written mostly on Pringles and pizza-fueled adrenaline and while listening to Scala and Kolacny Brothers' covers of songs.

The chair in the office is stiff, hard plastic covering over the seat and Sam’s got the wooden armrest digging into his side because he’s taller than the average person it was made for. He’s tapping his pencil against his knee, constant rhythm matching his heart rate, and the receptionist glares at him a few times, shuffles some papers, and finally puts on a tight, tense smile, leaning forward with her arms folded across the desk.

“Sir,” she says. “Mr. Lehne will be with you as soon as he can, just be patient.”

Sam glances up at her, flicking the pencil against his leg. Echoes her false smile and replies, “Just a little nervous, if that’s all right with you.” 

She blinks, taken aback, and settles back into her seat, glaring at him every so often over the rim of her coffee cup or from behind her computer screen until the door in the back opens and someone official and pompous sticks their head out and calls, “Mr. Winchester?”

Sam gets up, shaking his suit jacket off and brushing his hands down his pants legs, sticking the pencil into his pocket and offering the receptionist a final, fleeting look before heading down the hall to Mr. Lehne’s office. 

“He’s on a very tight schedule, Mr. Winchester,” the secretary says, frowning as he rakes his eyes up and down Sam’s six-four frame. “So I’d suggest you answer all his questions promptly and not ask too many of your own.”

Sam’s upper lip curls over his teeth, more snarl than smile. “I’ll do whatever I have to if it gets me a place in the school,” he says, and pushes the door open.

Mr. Lehne is sitting behind his desk, fingers pressed together over some files. “Samuel Winchester,” he says, and, “close the door behind you, son, and have a seat.”

Sam goes automatically tense the way he always does when people call him ‘son’, but he shuts the door and slides into the seat before him. It’s only a little more comfortable than the one outside, and he bites his lower lip, sliding his legs under the chair and crossing them at the ankles. “Mr. Lehne,” he starts.

The dean lets out a laugh, short and sharp, and shakes his head. “Please, call me Azazel,” he says. 

“Azazel,” Sam repeats, tasting the odd name on his tongue, watching as Azazel’s lips pull back across his unnaturally straight, white teeth. “All right, then, it’s nice to meet you—my name’s Sam.” He doesn’t add ‘not Samuel’ but he’s pretty sure it’s obvious on his face, because Azazel’s smile widens infinitesimally and he leans forward in his desk like he’s going to share a secret.

“Sam,” Azazel says, inclining his head, and Sam feels a twist of something close to annoyance burn low in his chest—mockery has never sat well with him. “I understand you have made an incredibly high score on your LSAT this year?”

“Yeah, a one seventy-four,” Sam mutters, trying to decide whether to look at Azazel, or his hands twisting over themselves on his desk, or the blinking cursor on his computer screen. 

“You must be serious about law, then.”

“Very serious, sir,” Sam says, with the little eyebrow arch at the end that everyone’s always said makes him look convincing and honest. 

Azazel nods once, and “Then you know Stanford Law School only takes the most prestigious,” he says. “The most willing to dedicate themselves to their work. It’s a twenty-four/seven job, Sam, being a lawyer. Are you up for it?”

Sam’s palms are itching, and he scratches absently at his skin. Thinks about how last night, he was sucking popcorn butter off Jess’ fingers while she rode him into the sofa, her hair flying everywhere around them like a golden halo. How he’s worked four years towards getting into this school, the whole time never really being sure it’s what he actually wants. 

“I’m up for it,” he says, voice gravel-rough at the back of his throat, hands flat against his legs so he won’t pick the skin. 

Azazel gives him a considering look, and Sam feels something shift in his chest, restless and uneasy. 

“Are you also considering other options?” he asks. “Such as Yale Law, perhaps? Or Harvard?”

“Yeah, I’m considering,” Sam says, a little irritated—he’s at Stanford University, he’s not exactly raring to travel across the entire country just to learn how to take the bar exam properly. “But my first choice is always gonna be Stanford Law. Sir.” He drops his voice a little, trying—trying for something, he’s not sure what. Whatever it is that made his history teacher in sixth grade give him the A on his paper, even though it was pretty terribly written. That thing inside him that convinced Rachel Olson to let him feel her up, finger her, and they were barely fifteen. 

The way he can just _look_ at people, sometimes, and convince them that he’s okay, that he’s normal.

Azazel’s mouth does something interesting, one eyebrow quirking and for a second, just the barest instant, Sam sees his face twist dark and convoluted in the light from overhead. He can’t figure out what that expression is, but it reminds him vaguely of shadows, blood and screaming and the red film of anger Sam usually feels when he’s talking to Dean or John. 

“You don’t have to convince me like that, Sam,” Azazel says, and that’s wrong somehow, but Sam can’t focus on that when Azazel’s signing a paper, huge dark scrawling signature across the white sheet. “I didn’t even have to read through your whole file to know that you’d be a perfect candidate for the graduate program here.”

“Oh,” Sam breathes out, rushed and shaky, something very close to relief sliding through his chest. “So I. I got in, then?”

“If you maintain at least a three-point-nine,” Azazel says, “and continue to do well in all your classes for the rest of this semester, yes, Sam, you will be attending Stanford Law School in the fall.”

“Christ,” Sam says. 

Azazel smirks, doesn’t say anything. He slides the paper across the desk and holds his hand out. “You hold so much promise, Winchester,” he says. “We believe you will do great things.”

“Thank you,” Sam says, shaking Azazel’s hand because it’s the right thing to do, standing up and walking out before the dean can see how hard his legs are shaking.

Jess is waiting for him back at their apartment, bowl of spaghetti still hot on the kitchen counter and he takes it and sits next to her on the sofa, gluing his eyes to the television so he won’t have to look at her. It’s a Star Wars marathon, and Sam thinks of Dean, how harshly he’d be criticizing right now if he knew they’d started with the remakes instead of the original trilogy.

“Did you get in?” she asks, over the sound of Anakin asking Qui-Gon what midi-chlorians are. 

“Yeah,” Sam says to her bare foot, trying to sound nonchalant about it. 

“Oh my god,” Jess says, and he hears the ceramic of her bowl hitting the coffee table a second before she’s in his lap, kissing him, her hands tangled in his hair. “Congratulations, Sam, that’s so great!”

He sees a flash of Azazel’s face in his mind, the way it twisted in that bare instant when Sam was doing—whatever it is he was trying to do. 

“Thanks,” he mutters into the warm heat of her mouth. Spreads one hand over her thigh, feeling the contrast of his callouses and scars against her smooth skin, and thinks maybe one day all this will settle in his chest and feel like he knows it’s meant to.

*

“So how was he?” the receptionist asks Azazel later, when her body’s been temporarily inhibited by another being. “According to Marcia in here, he was rather rude.”

“He was _fine,_ ” Azazel tells her. “He seems intelligent, strong, curious, driven—all things our Father would have wanted from him.” He’s frowning a little, though, turning a ballpoint pen over in his hand, and the receptionist-who-isn’t lays her fingers against his arm, questioning look in her borrowed eyes. 

“What?” she asks.

“He was,” Azazel starts, and then stops. “He was missing something. I have never seen anything like it, not in a human soul, anyway. He seems to have lost an essential piece of himself.”

“Considering that his soul isn’t fully _his,_ Azazel—”

“But still,” Azazel says. “Even with the additional presence inside him, he should still be displaying all signs of normalcy for a human his age.” A tiny furrow appears between his eyebrows. “Do you suppose—”

“He _is_ normal,” she interrupts, sounding just short of panicked. “He’s normal, and when we have to report to our Father on his status, that’s _all_ we’re going to tell him. Get it?”

Azazel’s lip curls into a sneer. “Do you think I’m a fool?” he asks. His eyes drop up and down her body, and his sneer widens. “Don’t take that outfit again when you’ve returned to Earth,” he adds, and she glances down at herself. “It’s hideous, Ruby.”

Ruby glares at him. “Fuck’s sake, Azazel.”

“Language, my dear. Remember, you’re a full thousand years younger than I am, I could have your head on a pike.”

“It’s cute when you try threatening me,” she says, flipping the receptionist’s thick hair over her shoulder, and they both laugh.

“There is one other thing,” Azazel says, after a few minutes of silence, stacking his papers up and setting them on top of the desk. 

She looks over.

“When he has completed this—college, this law school, he will be going to a ‘law firm’, as I understand it.”

“Oh, you did your homework. Congratulations, should I be impressed?”

“You might want to start looking into it yourself,” he says, and his sneer curves until it’s closer to a smirk. “Because you and I, and a few others, are going to be—watching over him, if you will.”

Ruby’s mouth drops open. “Not—”

“It’s our orders,” Azazel tells her. “Unless you’d like to go against them?”

She’s quiet for a few seconds. Then, slowly, she shakes her head, folding her arms across her chest and going tense under her borrowed skin. “Why do I always get the crappiest ends of these deals?” she snarls, and then she curls out of the receptionist, black smoke falling thick and fast from her lips and nose and burning a hole into the ground. 

Azazel watches until the receptionist has collapsed into an unconscious but still living heap on the ground, then shakes his head, still smirking, and walks out of the offices of Lehne, Cortese, and Aycox, feeling a little stirring of something close to pride in his chest. 

*

“So,” Jess says later, curled around him, legs wrapped around his waist from the side, and it feels wrong, somehow, but Sam’s too worn out to move. “You gonna apply for an internship with this Lehne guy over the summer?”

“Maybe,” Sam says, hand pressed flat against his bare stomach, staring up at the ceiling. 

“Could be good for you,” Jess tells him, her mouth on his skin. 

“Yeah, we’ll see,” Sam says, because it’s barely November, he wants a little time to think about it, to give it a chance to all come together in his head. He can’t shake the memory out of his head from earlier, the way Azazel’s face just… _changed._

Jess lifts herself up on one elbow and stares down at Sam. “You okay?”

“M’fine,” he says, because he is. Always is, never too much emotion one way or the other about anything, except when it comes to John or Dean because they know exactly how to rile him up, but Sam doesn’t count his family into the equation most days. 

There’s a stretch of silence, and Sam counts how long it takes his eyes to travel along the curves and dips of the water stain across their ceiling. One end to the other, forty seconds total, and he wonders if they should have that checked out. 

“Are you still upset about Dean?” Jess asks, pressing her tiny index finger against the center of his chest. 

He glances over at her. “Should I be?”

She shrugs.

“It’s been what, four days, Jess, I’m not brooding over the fact that he doesn’t know how to act around me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Okay.” She shrugs again, dips herself down under the sheets and presses herself up against, him, firm warm line of soft skin, and he doesn’t look at her even when he feels her hand on his hip. “It would be understandable if you were,” she adds, “I mean, it’s gotta be stressful, having midterms coming up and the interview today and your brother coming in out of nowhere—”

“I’m _fine,_ ” Sam says, a little too loud. “Christ, Jess, I already told you.” He feels her flinch, shift up to look at him, wounded big eyes and the pretty little pink bow of her mouth slanted downward. Wonders, just for a second, why the fuck he’s even with her.

“Sorry,” she says, exaggerated and sarcastic, and he shakes his head. Doesn’t reply, still staring at the water stain on the ceiling, wondering vaguely when it got there, and after a few seconds she rolls over away from him, exposing the long line of her back against the cool white sheets. 

He falls asleep still feeling unsettled and confined in his chest, and his dreams, when they come, are dark and uneasy, full of fleeting glimpses of stars and feathers and, once, the touch of ice to his bare skin. 

He wakes up thinking he’s going to fall, still remembering how cold it was in the empty space of his dream, and can’t understand why it wasn’t unpleasant.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to apologize for how long this took to come out, the chapter was fighting me and my attention span was doing weird things so it took a while, but here it is~!

The next three years drag on.

Sam wakes up, goes to class. Takes half-hearted notes on his laptop sometimes, spends the rest of the time surfing websites that deal with everything from exotic food recipes to filthy secret porn kinks—although he’s careful to look at those when the lecture halls are mostly empty and he’s in the back. He goes back to the apartment in the evenings and he and Jess order takeout, or she has something cooked, or they go to bars. Sit in dirty booths with their knees knocking under the table, Jess’ fingers tracing patterns into the warped wood and Sam staring at her, waiting as always to feel that jolt of _she’s the one._

Once, Dean calls. Sam’s midway through his second year, studying up for a test and his phone rings, the number unfamiliar on his caller ID. “Yeah,” he says into the mouthpiece, distracted, and Dean’s on the other end, startling him. He hasn’t heard from his brother since their semi-cataclysmic meeting back in 2005. 

“Just wanted to see how you’re doing,” Dean tells him, almost a mirror echo of what he said two years ago, and Sam gives a vague lie into the phone of how he’s doing fine. Dean says the same, there’s a long stretch of silence and Sam can hear the television on low in the background on Dean’s end, an unfamiliar female voice saying _come back to bed, baby,_ and he mutters ‘bye’ and hangs up before Dean can say anything in return.

He never hears from John. It’s just as well, he’d probably figure out a way to slit his throat over the phone if he did.

Sometimes Azazel checks up on him, coming to the law school from his firm and standing on the corner of the street where there’s an Izzo’s Sam eats at sometimes, smirking or sneering or whatever it is he does with his mouth that’s so unsettling. Sam ignores him, mostly, and he never stays for more than a few minutes at a time, asking Sam how he’s doing, if there’s anything he can do for him. 

“You’re still aiming to intern at my firm this summer, right?” he asks once, and Sam, tired and frustrated and annoyed because Brady’s starting to equate ‘weekly blowjobs’ with ‘I’ll be leaving my girlfriend for you pretty soon’, goes tense, snaps back without thinking:

“You’re the dean of students, you should know everything about us already,” even though that’s not technically true.

Azazel just laughs, like saying it wasn’t rude as all hell, says, “Very good, Winchester,” and he doesn’t take anything out but it’s like he’s making a note on a pad somewhere.

So Sam doesn’t like him at all, but he puts up with him because it’s only three years and then he can leave and work anywhere. Anywhere he wants. 

Three years of clenching his teeth to override his anger every time something irritates him, of talking to his professors all slow and quiet _(shouldn’t you give me an A on this, Dr. K., you know how hard I’ve been working all month to get it done),_ of burnt soup dinners on the nights when he and Jess fight and she goes storming out to stay at her friends’ houses, of lazily jerking off in the shower and not thinking of anything in particular except occasional odd flashes of a faceless man with cold hands and a strangely familiar set to his form, of studying and not sleeping much and fucking people in the bathrooms at nightclubs because Jess doesn’t like it rough the way he does—and then one day, suddenly, it’s over.

*

He graduates in late May, California heat pressing in all around like it’s trying to choke them. Everyone in the audience is rich, dressed nice in suits and ties or cocktail dresses that cling to their skin, and Sam, last row because of his surname, pulls on his collar until it goes damp with sweat between his thumb and forefinger.

After the ceremony, there’s a get-together at the dean’s mansion—not Azazel, another one that Sam doesn’t know very well—and Sam goes, if only because Jess wants to and he really doesn’t feel up to arguing about it tonight. He spends the first thirty minutes in her company, arm around her waist, half-smile plastered on, presenting a sweet if somewhat plastic front to the others, but after she’s snagged ten shrimp and forced him to eat them straight off their little toothpicks, he gets bored and wanders off. 

Brady is in one corner of the yard, smoking a cigarette, his dress shirt unbuttoned enough to show off his smooth chest, shiny with sweat, and Sam takes two steps towards him and is stopped, unexpectedly, by a hand falling on his shoulder.

“Didn’t realize you’d made such high connections here, Sammy,” and oh. Dean.

He turns, mouth set tight. “Didn’t realize you even knew when the ceremony was,” he says, first words to his brother since sometime midway through his second year, and Dean’s eyebrows draw together, incredulous little smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth.

“Course I knew, man, did you think I was gonna miss your graduation?” He takes a long drink of champagne, sucking down half a glass at one go, eyes drifting over immediately after and Sam knows it’s all for show. Like Dean thinks he’s the most eligible, attractive guy here. 

“Wouldn’t have been the first time,” Sam says, and feels a tiny thrill of satisfaction at the way Dean’s eyes go dark. The sudden frown that draws on his lips.

“I was halfway across the country, Sam, for Christ’s sake—” 

“Yeah, well, it’s whatever, dude, it doesn’t even matter.” Sam shrugs. “Honestly wasn’t much different than this one.”

“Then why’d you even bring it up—” Dean pauses mid-sentence. Draws in a sharp breath and visibly steadies himself, eyes sliding shut before he restarts, “How’ve you been, man? Where’s Jess, are you still with her?”

“Yeah.” Sam frowns, eyes scanning the crowd for his girlfriend, but before he can spot her Dean’s expression changes, body stiffens, and Sam feels a presence behind him a second before he hears his father’s voice over his shoulder, for the first time in seven years:

“Sam,” John says, and, “son, it’s good to see you,” and Sam finds himself getting turned around and pulled into a hug before he’s completely processed what’s going on.

“John,” he says, his voice muffled a little into John’s leather jacket, and he doesn’t miss the way his father goes stiff in his arms. “I’d say the same thing about you, but I think we both know that wouldn’t be quite true.”

John pulls away from Sam, arms folded across his chest and a frown on his face. He cuts his eyes to Dean, quick reflexive movement, and Dean shrugs. Smiles apologetically, like what are we gonna do with him, and that more than anything makes Sam want to hit someone. 

“Sam,” he says, slow like he’s talking to a wild animal. “You’re twenty-six years old, for Christ’s sake, isn’t it time you moved past this whole ‘emo teenager’ phase?”

Sam mirrors John’s stance and tilts his head a little to the left, tiny smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. “If you came to insult me, that’s fine, my brother can handle his own there. We don’t need you to add any extra commentary.”

He hears Dean behind him, shifting—probably reaching for his knife in his jacket—and takes a step backward, watching John’s nostrils flare out, mouth drawing into a thin line. Holds his hands out, indicating harmless intentions, and his smirk widens.

“Don’t need to get all excited or anything,” he says, calm and low. “Just trying to be as honest as possible here.”

John grits his teeth around a sentence, draws in a breath. “I just came to see you graduate, Sam,” he says. “I thought I owed you that much.”

“Oh, did you,” Sam says, distracted by the sight of Brady’s lips set against the edge of a plastic Solo cup. “Because the last time I talked to you I was under the impression that you thought I was some unnatural freak—”

“Sam, c’mon, we drove halfway across the country to see you, man,” Dean says, sounding tired. 

“Should’ve struck a match next to that much gasoline before you wasted it coming to see me, we all know you’d have been better served that way,” Sam grunts, and then laughs, fast and sharp, at the expression on John’s face. Smile never quite reaching his eyes, and the dimple flashing in his cheek is too innocent for the cold, hard way his irises glint in the lights.

“Listen, I won’t have you speaking to me that way—” John starts.

“Really.” The smile on Sam’s face curls down into a sneer, dark and dangerous. “You’re gonna try telling me what to do _now,_ like you think you can just come up and pretend you’re anything _close_ to being my father—”

“I’m not afraid to take you down right here, right now, in front of all these people.” John makes an all-encompassing gesture, and Sam takes a step forward. Feels Dean’s fingers wrap around his wrist, tight and warning against his suit. 

Sam exhales hard through his nostrils, shifts and tugs his arm until Dean lets go. Looks John directly in the eye, raising his eyebrow and pressing his lips together, and “I’d like to see you try,” he says, coolly.

John moves, just one inch too close into Sam’s personal space, and Sam barely even blinks but suddenly the entire barbeque grill is caught up in flames, red and orange distorting the guests’ faces as they stand there, staring at first in shock, and then screaming, running away from the grill while the dean grabs frantically at the water hose attached to the side of the house, trying to put the fire out.

“Christ,” Sam mutters, shaking his head, “people are so slow sometimes,” and he shifts his hand in his pocket, subtle wrist movement that no one catches, and the fire dies down instantly, smoldering under the now charred sausages that no one seems particularly interested in eating anymore. 

“Well,” says the dean after a few long, quiet moments, “that’s one way to send our graduates off.” Uneasy laughter trickles across the backyard, his wife presses her hand against his shoulder, and time moves on.

Dean waits until no one is near the three of them anymore, then grabs Sam’s wrist again and hauls him around to face him. “What the _fuck,_ ” he starts.

“Are you trying to _prove_ something, boy?” John yells, and a few people turn to stare at him. “Just because you can do all this freaky shit with your ‘powers’—” making air quotes, and Sam comes this close to hitting him, sanctimonious bastard that he is. “You think you can scare me?” he asks, raising his eyebrows, and Sam tightens his muscles under Dean’s hand, gritting his teeth hard, and snarls:

“Is that a _challenge,_ John?” 

Then he turns to the people, staring at them from behind cocktails and champagne glasses. Lifts up one corner of his mouth and drops his chin, and “It’s fine,” he says. “What’s a little disagreement between members of the family, right?” 

They smile uneasily, shifting in their suits and silk dresses.

“Go back to your conversations now,” Sam murmurs. “Everything’s under control,” and he feels the jolt of it in his chest when they turn away, their eyes glazed, vacant. 

Dean’s staring at Sam when he lets his focus go, throat constricting as he swallows. “What are you doing, Sammy?” he whispers.

“Nothing you need to worry about, Dean,” Sam says, arch and cool, and doesn’t miss the way Dean lets go of his wrist, like Sam’s branded him.

Dean and John are still staring at Sam a few seconds later, their eyes wide and mouths open, when Jess comes up, twirling a mini-sausage on a toothpick, bright smile on her face. “Sam!” she says, pressing her hand against his arm. “And Dean, oh my god, it’s so nice to see you again!” 

“Hey, Jessica,” Dean says, glancing from her to Sam and back.

Jess’ gaze shifts to John. “Is this your dad?” she starts, but Sam shifts his arm from under her fingers, mouth pressed into a tight line. 

“It’s time to go, Jess,” he says. “I’m tired, okay?”

“Uh,” she says, uncertain, looking between Sam and Dean and their father. “Sure,” and he reaches out, arm around her waist, and flashes his teeth at his brother.

“Good to see you, Dean,” he says, the lie tasting bitter and convoluted on his tongue. Nods at John, old Western-style, and John glares back at him, eyebrows knitted over his nose. 

Dean swallows audibly. “Congratulations, Sam,” he murmurs, one hand on his side, and Sam turns, walks away into the night, Jess following with her skirts swishing gently around her ankles. Jess stays wisely silent as they get into Sam’s car, moving her class ring around her finger, and they ride back to the apartment with nothing between them but the low static of the radio, blurred and half-cut out versions of Led Zeppelin filtering in through the speakers.

“So you and your family still aren’t getting along,” Jess says as they pull into the parking lot adjacent to their complex.

Sam reaches up and pushes his hair off his forehead. “We never have,” he says, shaking his head once as he cuts the ignition and pops the locks on the doors.

“Did you see the way the barbeque grill just caught on fire, that was so weird.”

“Yeah.” Sam flips his keys over his hand, heads up to their door. “What a waste of food.”

Jess frowns. “It could’ve _killed_ someone, Sam,” she says, lecturing tone in her voice, the way she always gets when she’s getting started on the environment or social justice issues, and Sam feels his shoulders going tense as he twists the knob and steps inside. 

“It went out pretty fast,” he replies, flicking on the hall lights. “It was okay,” and doesn’t add that no one there would’ve been worth saving anyway.

She sets her purse on the kitchen table. Hooks an ankle around one of the chair legs and faces him with her hair falling over one shoulder. “It was pretty terrifying. I mean, I’ve never seen anything like that happen before, you know? It was unnatural; grills don’t just burst into flame unless they’re unsupervised for a long time.”

He doesn’t answer. Sets the keys on a table in the foyer before going to join her in the kitchen. He’s at the sink with his hands under the tap, rust-colored water streaming over his fingers, still with the burn from using in his chest. Arms shaking a little when he rests them on the chrome basin, and he doesn’t understand why.

“Yeah, well,” he says, and then, “Jess, I wanted to ask you a question. It’s pretty important.”

He hears her shift the chair around. “Sure, anything,” she says, voice closer than before. One of her tiny hands comes out to rest on his shoulder and he clenches his fingers against the sink until his knuckles go white.

“You love me, right?” he asks, voice rough and unpracticed against the words.

“Yeah, of course,” she says, sounding surprised. 

His knee is pressed against the baseboards of the sink, wooden door that knocks shut every time he shifts. “You’d do anything for me?” he continues. Doesn’t really know what he’s doing, the hot flare of uncertainty and faint disgust clenching tight in his chest, but it seems like the right thing. After all this, after so many years at college and of living in this cramped space. It just feels like the inevitable next step. Like Sam’s moving just that much closer to the edge.

“Anything, baby,” Jess agrees, and now she sounds worried, her hands pressing against his shoulders, his sides. “What is it, what’s wrong?”

He draws in a breath. Turns to face her because he figures that’s the way most people do this sort of thing, and takes her hands in his, feeling the bones of her wrists under her skin. “You, uh,” he says, and clears his throat. “Jess, will you marry me?”

Her eyes go wide, a little startled. Like she wasn’t expecting the question, and he feels a tight, low curl of annoyance in his stomach. “What?” she asks, like she’s not sure she heard him right.

He rubs the pad of his thumb over her hand, tracing life lines and callus on her fingers. “Will you marry me,” he repeats, looking at the line of her neck where it disappears into the collar of her dress.

“Sam,” she starts, turning one hand over in his and squeezing. “I’m. I mean, wow, this is—really unexpected, I don’t. I mean, you—” She’s babbling, won’t look him directly in the eye and he lets out a sigh. Reaches down and tucks his fingers under her chin, lifting her face up and locking his gaze onto hers.

“It’s okay if you want to say ‘no’,” he says. “It’s really sudden, and I understand. But you love me, you aren’t going anywhere. If we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together in this apartment, why not?”

Her eyes shift over his face. She sucks her lower lip in and bites, and he feels a steady pulse of desire thrum hard under his skin. “Jess.” 

She’s quiet for a few seconds longer, then releases her lip and smiles at him, a slow unfurling across her face like the dawning of the sun. “Yes,” she says. “Okay, Sam Winchester, I will marry you,” and she tucks her head into the crook of his neck, pressing her lips against the line of his jaw.

*

Later that night, lying next to Jess wrapped up in their thick sheets, Sam has a dream.

It’s his first one in a while, and he’s startled to discover that it’s happening. Startled but not unhappy, because at least in his dreams he can feel a sense of belonging. He’s standing in the middle of a barren wasteland, frozen ground beneath his feet like the tundra, nothing around him but sparse brown grass and clumps of snow. The sun overhead is pale yellow and hidden behind murky clouds, warmth emanating from it in faint rays.

 _Sam,_ says a voice behind him, familiar but not, and he turns, slow, uncertain.

The form behind him— _human,_ Sam wants to say, but it isn’t, and he knows that like he knows how to hustle pool in bars, or how he knows to lift things off the ground at a distance of fifty feet—is just standing there, head tilted to the side. Its face is shadowed in the clouds but Sam thinks it might be smiling. 

“Who are you,” Sam says. He takes a few steps forward and stops, feeling something tug low and hard in his chest. It’s cold, almost burning, but Sam doesn’t mind. 

_I think you know,_ the voice says softly, almost amused.

Sam frowns. “You’re being cryptic,” he says. “And I’m dreaming, aren’t you supposed to be cooperating with me right now?”

 _You’ll find I don’t always follow the rules._

Sam smirks. “Neither do I.”

The form shivers a little, and yeah, that’s definitely amusement radiating off it. _You aren’t quite what I expected,_ it says, and Sam raises his eyebrows. 

“Disappointed?” 

Like he should care what this shadowy form thinks of him, in the cold field of his mind.

 _Hardly, Sam, you could never disappoint me._ It shimmers, and for a second, just the barest instant, Sam recognizes it, the shape and build and height. He feels the same tug in his chest, powerful and intense, and starts forward without thinking, struggling to remember what it is he’s reminded of, what he’s forgotten. 

“Wait,” he says, when his feet are losing their grip on the earth and he knows the dream’s going to fade. 

_Not now,_ the form murmurs, sounding sad. _Not yet, but soon, Sam. Very soon._

He wakes up shaking, the taste of ice in his mouth, a feeling blossoming in his chest like there’s something swelling inside him, wanting out. 

He needs answers.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I apologize for the wait~ 
> 
> Thank you all so much for your lovely reviews, they keep me going! A lot of things happen in this chapter that I wasn't expecting to have happen, so please give me your honest opinions on it, I would love to know how you're liking it so far (:
> 
> Many thanks to the lovely Hil for all her help with the earliest bits of this~

The clock says ten minutes to eight and Sam’s lying in bed, hands curled hard around the metal slats of the headboard, watching Brady’s head between his legs. Dark, tight curls of hair pushing against Sam’s crotch as he swallows him down, tongue flat against the underside of Sam’s cock, all hot and wet and messy and all Sam can think is _Christ I’m gonna be late._

“Brady,” he mutters, voice dark and heavy in the early-morning light of the room. “Hurry up, okay, got a schedule to keep.” Not the sexiest thing he’s ever said, but Brady acts like he didn’t even hear Sam, just reaches down and slides a hand along the inside of Sam’s thigh, slow and tantalizing. His lips move against Sam, drawing back enough so that he can swipe his tongue against the slit, and Sam shudders, eyes squeezed shut, and comes, sudden and fast down Brady’s throat.

Few seconds to breathe and regain his bearings, and then Brady pulls off, stares at Sam through half-lidded eyes. “Not my fault you decided you needed to get sucked off at seven in the fuckin’ morning.”

“It’s closer to eight now,” Sam snarks back, staring at the minute hand, creeping along the clock face. “How the fuck does it take you twenty minutes to get me to come.”

Brady blinks, then shrugs, sliding off the mattress. “Sorry.” He doesn’t sound apologetic as he heads into the bathroom adjoined to Sam and Jess’ room. Slams the door shut and a second later Sam hears the shower water running. 

“What do you need to fucking shower for, you prick, you don’t have work today,” Sam yells through the door.

Brady doesn’t answer, and Sam wedges his way in around steam and discarded clothes and starts brushing his teeth. 

“What are you _doing,_ Winchester.”

“Just getting ready for the day, pretty sure it shouldn’t bother you, you’ve had your mouth on my cock after all.” Toothpaste hits the mirror in tiny flecks as Sam speaks. Brady makes an annoyed sound behind the shower curtain but doesn’t respond, and Sam smirks, satisfied. He rinses his mouth out, spitting a long line into the sink and running his toothbrush under the stream of tap water. There’s a crack in the glass, tiny and insignificant, and he stares at it for a long minute, focusing. 

The glass makes a small settling sound and pops from a crack to a dent just as Brady turns the shower off and steps out.

“What—”

Downstairs, the front door opens and Jess yells, “Sam, I’m back, honey. Brought breakfast! Didn’t know Brady was gonna be here—Brady, you want to eat breakfast with us?”

Sam steps out of the bathroom, bare feet making soft wet indentations in the wood floor, and “Jess, he’s not here,” he calls, “he just wanted to park his car in the lot before he went to his training.” 

“Oh. Okay.” They both listen to the sound of her setting things down on the table for a few seconds: boxes, cans, the crinkle of plastic bags, then Sam makes a gesture with his thumb. 

“Back door,” he mutters. “And you better hope to god she’s too busy focusing on her Captain Crunch to hear your motor start up.”

Brady glares at him. Naked and wet in the fluorescent light, and Sam rolls his eyes, tosses a towel over. “Just get dressed and get out,” he says, and Brady edges around him, grabbing his clothes off the tiled floor as he goes.

Ten minutes later, Sam jogs downstairs in his ratty t-shirt and shorts, smeared with sweat and come across the front because he was too lazy and too tired to bother changing, and he takes a detour to the back of the apartment, letting Jess think it’s him coming in off the back porch instead of Brady going out.

“Morning,” he says, kissing her on the corner of her mouth and grabbing an apple off the counter next to where she’s standing, flipping pancakes.

“Morning,” she says back, and, “there’s cereal on the table already if you don’t want to wait for these to be done. And there’s bacon in the microwave.”

“Breakfast of champions,” Sam says, sinking his teeth into the apple. First day at the law firm and he’s already rushing, fifty minutes to get ready and go and all because Brady forgot how to get him off. 

“You nervous?” she asks.

He shakes his head, doesn’t answer out loud. There’s a loose bit of skin on his lower lip, hard and dry and just raised up enough to bother him, and he’s chewing on it as he pulls the plate of bacon out, tugging with his teeth until it comes off in one smooth, fast strip. A quick flash of pain registers across his mouth and is gone before he can even take the paper towels off the bacon where they’re soaking up the grease.

Jess slides a mug across the table when Sam sits. “Coffee,” she says, offering him a smile that he doesn’t return, and that’s it, that’s all there is to their morning. She’s done with the pancakes ten minutes later and he rips one in half, chewing idly on it between swallows of coffee that scald his tongue and burn the cut on his lip. He’s going to be worrying it for the rest of the day, he knows, that little stinging place right on the edge of his mouth where he can easily bite down with his teeth. 

After breakfast he goes upstairs, where the room still smells faintly of sex and Brady’s cologne, and lifts a window to air it out while he gets dressed: suit and tie and shoes that shine in the overhead lights. He brushes his teeth again, staring at the dent in the glass the whole time and it disappears just as he’s finishing up, leaving the mirror smooth and undistorted. 

Sam tugs on his cut lip and thinks about the glass when he’s pulling his briefcase shut, kissing Jess goodbye on the cheek. “Be home by five, probably,” he tells her, though she has a ceramics class after work and won’t be home until six-thirty, so it doesn’t really matter. 

“Good luck,” she tells him, pressing her hand into the center of his chest, the glint of her engagement ring flashing sharp on her finger, and he nods. Steps out of the apartment and into the early-morning sunlight, a tightness forming slow and unrelenting in his chest, and gets in his car, drives away.

*

It’s a little colder in the office than Sam would’ve expected, and he finds himself tightening his grip on the lapels of his suit jacket as he walks in. The cold’s never bothered him as much as it seems to bother other people, but still. He feels it enough. 

“Sam Winchester,” calls a voice from a back room. “Welcome,” and then a door is opening and Azazel is coming out, all straight-toothed smiles and glinting eyes and Sam feels a twinge of dislike in his chest, mouth curling in disgust before he’s able to tamper it down.

One of the girls sitting off to the side—blonde, tiny, wearing a maroon jacket and a dark pencil-skirt over tights—smirks, and Sam’s sure she saw his facial expression. He stares at her for a second—doesn’t much care if she knows how he feels about their boss, but he can at least get her to keep her mouth shut about it around him—then turns to Azazel and “Hey, Mr. Lehne,” he says. “It’s nice to see you.”

They shake hands and Azazel gestures at the blonde girl. “This is Meg,” he tells Sam. “She’s one of your associates, so say ‘hi’.”

As if they’re children. Sam rolls his eyes, fingers digging into the handle of his briefcase. 

Meg slides off the table, leaving fingerprints smeared against the wood, and walks up to Sam, her mouth curved at the corner. “Hi,” she says. Voice oddly soft, not quite what Sam was expecting. 

“S’nice to meet you.” Sam watches her shift her jacket over her shoulders, exposing a line of pale skin, and then his eyes slide between them. There’s something odd going on, something just under the surface, and Sam feels lost, watching their expressions play out. He doesn’t like the way Azazel’s looking at him, at Meg; doesn’t like the way she’s looking, either, covetous and wanton. He thinks for a second of the strange, twisted look on Azazel’s face, the first day they met

_(darkness blood heat dirty things oh so dirty)_

and finds himself looking for it in Meg, though he doesn’t understand why. 

She snaps her fingers in front of Sam’s face, and he blinks. “Hey, Winchester. You still with us here?”

He nods, slow. “Yeah.”

“Well, come on, we have to go ‘walking around’,” her tone turns mocking, here, and she looks at Azazel sideways. “Mr. Lehne likes to give all new employees the ‘grand tour’ of the firm so they can feel more settled in.”

Azazel’s mouth is tight. “Just common courtesy,” he says to Sam, before leading the two of them through a set of double doors and into the hallway. 

It’s dark, smells like air freshener and Lysol, and there’s a harder chill to the air that wasn’t there in the lobby.

He wonders if Meg is as good a lay as her legs say she is.

“Would you like to see your office now?” Azazel asks, bringing Sam out of his reverie, hand on his shoulder. The weight of it feels wrong there, off-balanced and too heavy, but Sam just shrugs, nods, and Azazel opens a door directly to his left. 

The office is smaller than Sam was expecting, just enough room for a computer and a desk and a filing cabinet. He moves carefully around, setting his briefcase on the floor and splaying his hand over the wall to his far right.

Azazel’s standing in the doorway, watching him, waiting for—something, Sam doesn’t know what. “Do you approve?”

“It’s uh. It’s fine,” Sam says, confused, sitting down and stretching his legs out under the desk.

“Okay. Good.” Azazel presses his palms together, smiles close-lipped at Sam before his eyes cut to Meg. “We’ll leave you to it, then.” They step back, Meg looking at Sam and making him think, strangely, of knives and blood and the taste of gunpowder at the back of his throat, and then she’s gone, and Azazel’s saying, “Call if you have any questions,” and the door is shutting behind him.

In the end, the only good thing about the law firm is that it’s two blocks away from a bar. Sam spends half his day with his pencil clamped between his teeth, staring at the phone that won’t ring on the edge of his desk, legs drawn up tense and uncomfortably cramped under him; the other half staring out the window, watching cars, people drift by under the sun. 

He’s bored, restless. That shifting, jagged-edged thing in his chest, the unsettled feeling he’s had his entire life—he expected it to go away when he sat down at the job. Or at least diminish itself somewhat, crawl into some smaller space between his lungs or behind his heart, give him room to breathe at least, but it’s still there, heavy and weighted and clawing at him. Sam drags his thumbnail down the side of his neck, leaving a white mark he can just see in the dark reflection of his computer screen, breathes out so his hair lifts off his forehead.

Around noon he leaves the office for lunch and finds himself at the water cooler down the hall with Meg and Azazel. It’s strange, interacting so much with his boss, Sam’s never had a job where the boss seemed so intent on getting in with the employees, but he supposes law firms work like this. Everyone intertwined, everyone sharing a bit of their lives all the time. 

He bites back a callous smile at the idea that _he_ could ever do something as normal and base as that, and fills a tiny triangular cup at the cooler. The water drags down into the spigot and then fills back up— _glub, glub, glub._

_Glub._

“So, Sam,” Meg’s saying, while Sam watches her earrings dangle against her shoulders. “What got you interested in law?”

Sam shifts, aware of Azazel’s eyes on him even though he’s talking to someone else. “Just,” he starts, and has to take a drink, his throat surprisingly dry. “Just always thought it would be cool to get paid to argue, I guess.” It’s a pretty simple answer, not exactly up to standard for someone who just graduated Stanford Law, but Meg just laughs, her head thrown back, the line of her neck exposed. Laughs until she’s almost crying, like Sam’s just said the funniest thing in the world, and he feels raw irritation crawl up his spine, prickle the back of his neck. Jesus _Christ._

“My dad pushed me into it,” she says, with a side glance at Azazel, tiny private smile playing on the corners of her mouth. “But it’s okay.” 

Sam lifts one shoulder in a shrug, finishes his water, and crushes the cup between his thumb and forefinger. Tosses it in the trashcan and reaches out to brush a loose strand of Meg’s hair off her sleeve. “Face like yours, you’d win every case before you had to present any evidence,” he says, flirting a little because he’s so _bored_ and why not, and Meg’s smile widens. 

“Charmer,” she says, and pushes at his shoulder with her little fingers. “I bet Ruby will _love_ you.”

“Ruby?” 

“Our other,” she pauses, “associate. She’s out, Mr. Lehne sent her to the—to work on a case. She’ll be back later, you can meet her after hours probably.” Meg’s eyebrows draw together, and she looks at Sam, lips pouting, coquettish and young in a way that makes Sam want to slam her into a chair, tell her to shut up and go date some high school varsity jock. “You _are_ going with us after hours, right?”

“Meg,” Azazel says, turning away from whoever he was talking to and sliding into their conversation, acting like he hasn’t been listening to every word they’ve been saying. “Sam doesn’t know what you’re talking about, perhaps you’d like to elaborate some.”

“It’s fine,” Sam says, before Meg can start. “I had plans later anyway—” looking from one to the other, keeping his voice low and impassive. Trying so hard to get them to drop whatever it is they’re talking about so he can just go home and drink beer until he passes out on the couch, then wake up hours later and maybe fool around with Jess for a bit, if he feels up to it. 

Azazel shakes his head. “No, no, Sammy,” he says, and Sam jerks, white-hot flash of anger coursing through him at the sound of that ridiculous nickname passing his lips. It’s merely aggravating when Dean or John says it, was infuriating at school, and it’s—incongruous, here. Almost grotesque, coming from Azazel, though Sam can’t explain how. 

“You can’t get out of this,” Meg says, still with her earrings hanging over her shoulders. “It’s just a little meet-up we do at the bar—” she points—“just me and Aza—Mr. Lehne, and Ruby, and now you too. Just this once-a-month thing.” Her eyes are crystalline and hard on Sam. “You can’t say no, Sam, it’s too good an offer to pass up,” and her nails are on Sam’s arm and he draws in a long, slow, tight breath, head spinning. Nods once, sharp, and Meg releases him, smiling again, her teeth flashing in the overhead light. 

“Good,” Azazel says. “So we’ll see you at five?” 

Another nod. Careful this time, because Sam’s head feels strangely overbalanced, like he might fall.

Meg and Azazel walk off, and Sam presses himself against the water cooler, wondering what in the _hell_ just happened. 

His throat is so tight and dry that it’s difficult to swallow the next cup of water, but he manages.

*

“So,” says Ruby. “You must be Sam.”

They’re at the bar, Sam’s face half-hidden in the lights, shirt and right arm drenched in red and green and blue neon from outside. Meg’s getting food down at the service station, Azazel with her, and Sam and Ruby are alone at a pair of maroon barstools. Sam’s ankle is hooked around the metallic leg of one and he can’t take his eyes off the curve of Ruby’s shoulder where it disappears into her dress. 

“Yeah,” Sam says, taking another drink. “That’d be me.”

Ruby smiles. “Prettier than Azazel said,” she announces, eyes drifting over Sam’s face, and Sam feels something low tighten in his stomach at the tone in her voice. “Did you just start today?”

Sam nods. “What about you, how long’ve you been working there.”

“Long enough,” she says, after a pause, and Sam doesn’t know quite what’s wrong with that statement but before he can figure it out Meg and Azazel have returned with cheese fries and four grease-soaked burgers.

“Is this shit supposed to be for all of us,” Ruby asks, glaring at the food. “Because you know I like _ketchup,_ Meg.”

“Picky, so fucking picky,” Meg says, setting the plate down by Sam’s arm and drawing up another two stools. “You can go get another plate if you don’t like that.”

“You’re the one with the money,” Ruby mutters, and Azazel clears his throat.

“Play nice,” he says, low, and Sam doesn’t get what he’s talking about, why he looks like that, but Ruby just rolls her eyes and sits back, rocking the legs of her barstool against the grime-covered floor, and Meg grabs a burger, looking giant in her tiny palm, lettuce falling off the sides. She nudges the plate towards Sam, he considers lifting one without touching it but decides not to, it’s probably too early for that even if they do seem appreciative of his charm, and the night starts. 

He’s drunk an hour later, bottle slipped back against his lips, wet on his hand. There are two fries left in the plate and Ruby and Meg are fighting over who’s gonna get them while Sam watches, disinterested, his eyes half shut. Any sort of desire he might have initially felt towards either of them has been almost totally eradicated and all he wants is to go back to the apartment.

“Having fun, Sam?” Azazel yells over the music, and Sam jerks his head up. Squints at his boss in the half-dark, and shrugs, mouth curved down. He feels loose-ended and sloppy, one arm dangling by his side, the other propped up on the bar.

“S’alright,” he mutters into his drink. 

Azazel claps him on the back, too hard and Sam almost loses balance. “Liking my firm so far?”

What the hell is Sam supposed to say to a question like that? Tell the truth, get fired without even receiving a paycheck? “Yeah, it’s great,” he says, and watches that strange dark thing pass across Azazel’s features. Or maybe it’s just the shadows. 

“I want you to know that you can come to me about anything.” Azazel leans in, puts his hand on Sam’s shoulder. It’s still unbalanced, the way it was earlier, but Sam’s too drunk and tired to complain. “Anything at all, any problems you have, you can talk to me. I don’t want to just be ‘Mr. Lehne’ to you, Sam, I want you to _trust_ me.”

“Yeah,” Sam says absently, watching Ruby’s shoulders shift under her dress as she slaps one of the cheese fries out of Meg’s hand and into her own. “Sure, okay.”

Azazel smiles, too-straight teeth flashing under his lips, and “Ruby, Meg,” he says, “I think it’s time, don’t you?”

Meg’s off her barstool in a second, tugging her skirt down over her knees and licking the last of the ketchup from her burger off her fingers. Ruby turns more slowly, knees bumping Sam’s when she’s facing him, and pulls something out of her jacket. It’s a flask, a fucking _hip flask_ in a _bar,_ and Sam snorts out a laugh, watching Ruby unscrew the top.

“You could just get that over the counter,” he says, gesturing with his thumb. “Plenty of good alcohol still in here, you know,” but she’s holding it out to him, and he feels his smirk wavering, going uncertain on his face. 

“This stuff is good,” she says, voice low. “Better than the other stuff in here.” She looks at Meg, who nods, eyes sparkling under the strobe lights. 

Sam takes the flask. Battered and rusty, it shines like silver but the heft and weight of it tells him it isn’t, it’s chrome-plated, carved into at the bottom with initials he doesn’t recognize and worn at the sides from years of use. “What is it?”

“Just drink it,” Ruby tells him, and her hand snakes itself onto his leg, rubbing against his thigh.

Desire flares low in his stomach, hot and rich, and he tilts the flask back against his lips and drinks it all, a strange, thick liquid; tastes metallic and hot and faintly salty. _Blood,_ he thinks, confused, and immediately dismisses the thought because that’s too strange, even for Sam. 

He pulls the flask back and they’re all watching him, Meg and Ruby and Azazel. Waiting for him to do something, he can tell, but he doesn’t know what. The liquid spreads warm and low through his stomach, it sparks something in his chest like a good shot of an energy drink might and suddenly Sam’s standing up. His legs are shaking a little, he can feel this weird heat coursing through him, like he just ran a marathon. 

“Fuck’d you give me?” he asks, voice too loud in his head, but he doesn’t really care. Finds himself grabbing Ruby around the waist and drawing her against him, one hand splayed over her hip as he brushes her hair back from her face with the other. 

“Fuckin’ vampires or something,” he mutters against her mouth, before crushing their lips together, sudden and fast in the dark. She kisses back immediately, her tongue sliding against his and along the roof of his mouth, and he lifts her, not really touching, just _lifts_ her off the ground and onto one of the barstools. His hand slides under her skirt, into the heat between her legs, and he traces his mouth down her jaw, against the side of her neck. 

“Hey,” the bartender says, voice coming out from the dark immediately to Sam’s left. “ _Hey,_ son, you wanna get frisky like that, you go find yourself a motel. This ain’t a goddamn strip club.”

Sam doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t lift his head from where he’s sucking on Ruby’s skin, but he hears the clatter of bottles and a few gasps from still-lucid customers, and he knows the bartender is pressed against the wall now, probably making some ineffective reach for a gun or a phone.

Ruby pushes away from him after a few seconds, her irises dark and mouth open and red where Sam was biting at it. “C’mon, Sam, not here,” she says, raising her eyebrows, and he shrugs, dragging himself from between her legs and releasing the bartender, who falls with a crash to the ground. 

They go into a bathroom, Ruby, Sam, and Meg—Azazel staying outside, Sam doesn’t know why and doesn’t much care—and Meg’s barely locked the door behind the three of them when Sam’s attacking Ruby again, shoving her against the wall and rucking her skirt up around her hips. He can feel Meg’s body pushing against him from the side, her fingers undoing his belt and slipping inside his pants, but he doesn’t take his mouth off Ruby’s collarbone long enough to look at her. 

The bathroom light is flickering, fluorescent and sickly bright. Sam sees it under his eyelids, mingling with the red film that seems to have come over his vision every time he looks anywhere now. There’s a steady electrical thrum under his skin, pulsing and hot in time with the dull throb of music outside, and Sam’s shaking when he moves his hand between Ruby’s legs. Pushing his fingers into her and listening to the sharp, loud moan that comes from her throat. Meg’s hand is working on him too, she’s somewhere behind him—his sense of direction is all screwed up, he can’t really orient himself right now—and he’s thrusting against her, hips moving in little jerks against Ruby’s leg and Meg’s fingers while Ruby scratches at his back, gasping into the stale air.

He’s not sure who comes first, him or Ruby, only knows that everything’s accumulated all at once in his brain, the heat and the electricity and the steady burn of lust, and when Meg draws away from him he can feel his legs trembling, only just supporting his weight. 

He steps back from Ruby, and she tugs her skirt down, blinking, mouth open, breath coming shallow and fast.

It’s a strange little moment in the bathroom, the three of them standing there, graffiti on the walls—Sam reads _FUCK THE SYSTEM_ over the toilet, and there’s _blue waffle_ scratched in next to the mirror; someone’s number and _he’ll get you wet in five seconds_ by the paper towel dispenser—smell of booze in the air. Dirty floor caked with something sticky and yellow, and Sam feels. He feels _powerful,_ for a few seconds, more so than he ever has. He remembers forcing that bartender outside against the wall and lets out a small, harsh laugh, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Well then,” Ruby says, tiny smirk playing on her mouth.

“I should drink that shit more often,” Sam says, meaning the stuff in the flask, whatever the hell it was, and they all laugh.

Azazel’s waiting outside, still, his expression impassive, though his eyes drop to Ruby’s exposed collarbone, the line of bruises Sam sucked into her skin. “We should talk,” he tells Sam, and Sam feels his muscles go tense.

“Not right now,” Meg says, a warning in her tone that Sam can’t figure out. “He’s still coming down.”

Azazel shakes his head, agreeing. “Not right now. But soon.” He claps Sam on the shoulder for the third time that day, and Sam suppresses a shudder. “Okay, Sammy?”

_Don’t fucking call me that,_ Sam thinks. Says, “Sure,” and walks out on unsteady legs, his coworkers and his boss directly behind him.

It’s not until after Azazel’s dropped him off at his apartment, when he’s washing his face in the bathroom and Jess is asking how his day was through the door and why does he smell like alcohol, it’s barely seven in the evening, that it occurs to Sam that, despite the amount of liquor they’d all consumed, Azazel wasn’t even drunk.

*

He dreams that night, mostly formless flashes of dark red things, shadowy figures that disappear if he tries to focus completely on them. Sam spends most of his dream feeling that same strange, rushed heat in his chest, the furnace-like sensation brought on by the drink in the flask. 

At one point, he blinks, and he’s back in the barren stretch of land from his earlier dream, the one he hasn’t had since he graduated. He feels a tiny thrill in his chest at the thought of being back here, though he’s not sure why. Doesn’t even really know where _here_ is.

_Sam._ The voice comes from behind him, and Sam turns, smiling without thinking about it. 

“Hey,” he says. The form is shimmering, brighter than the last time, radiating something, some emotion that feels like curiosity mixed with—not quite anger, but. Irritation. Something prickling and wary that stops Sam from moving any closer.

_They damaged you,_ it tells him, and Sam doesn’t need to see its face to know it’s frowning. _They gave you—they_ stained _you, Sam._ It reaches out with an arm, light hitting the side of Sam’s face and Sam shivers at how cold it is. 

“I didn’t ask for it, if that helps,” Sam offers. Not quite sure what they’re discussing, but he can guess.

_I know. I’m not blaming you._ It strokes Sam’s cheek, strangely comforting gesture, and Sam doesn’t know why he wants to lean into the touch, wants to soak it up, drink it in. 

“Are you going to hurt them?” Sam asks after a while. 

_Would you care if I did?_

Sam shakes his head, and the form laughs out loud, pleased little amused huffs of breath that have Sam smiling too. _Unfortunately, I need them alive for now,_ it says. _So the answer to your question is ‘no’._ It steps back from Sam a pace, tilting its head again, and Sam feels something swell up and spread out in his chest. His heart thuds once, hard, against his ribs, and he opens his mouth, blurts before he can stop himself:

“Who are you? You didn’t tell me last time I was here.”

The form makes a low, uncertain sound, brightness dulling like it’s thinking about leaving and Sam sucks in a breath, thinks _don’t you fuckin dare_ without realizing.

There’s a pause, a break in the air. Sam’s vaguely aware that he’s just thought something dangerous, thinks for no reason that he’s about to die, here in his own mind. 

“Sorry,” he starts, backing up, but the form reaches out and twines around Sam, dragging him to a stop before he can go any further. 

Everything’s still and quiet for a few seconds, and then it shifts. Solidifies and sucks the light into itself, growing into a shape Sam recognizes, recognizes all too well, and—

It’s him. Sam’s suddenly looking at himself, wearing the ratty Stanford sweatshirt he still sleeps in because it’s warm, and a pair of boxer shorts, his hands hanging awkwardly at his sides like he doesn’t quite know what to do with them. “Hello, Sam,” he says, and Sam blinks, mouth open without realizing. 

“Um.”

“I’m an angel,” Sam’s form says. “My name is Lucifer.”

Sam makes a sound, low and disbelieving. “Lucifer,” he repeats. “Like the Devil?”

Lucifer flinches. “Yes,” he says, cautious. “Although your society’s interpretation of what I have done is slightly misconstrued.”

Sam hesitates. Tests the weight of that statement, the truthfulness of it. He hears bitterness in Lucifer’s voice, and that if nothing else he can relate to. 

“So why am I dreaming about you, then,” he asks, hand making an abortive movement out, like he still badly wants to touch Lucifer, even though he knows who he is now. “I mean. I know I’ve got these—this disease—” 

“It isn’t a disease,” Lucifer interrupts, sounding firm. “It’s who you are, Sam. It’s how you were born. You cannot blame yourself for something you had no control over.”

No one’s ever said it like that before to Sam, and he feels something ease up in his chest. “Oh,” he says, quietly, and Lucifer nods. He steps forward, hesitant, and Sam swallows, watching Lucifer track the movement of his throat with his eyes.

“I can’t explain why I’m here right now, Sam, it’s too much,” Lucifer continues after a moment, his hand back where it was before on Sam’s cheek, Sam shutting his eyes at the touch, cold and strangely soothing. “Just know this: I will never harm you. Not here, not anywhere else. You have my word on that.”

There’s truth behind that statement too, and Sam nods. Opens his eyes so he can look at Lucifer, see the odd differences in his face despite the fact that it’s still Sam’s, and finds that he’s alone again. 

Sam doesn’t know what it means, exactly, that he feels so complete when Lucifer’s around, like he never has before in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also I didn't really know how to tag for the threesome in this chapter without spoiling things so I just left it not tagged, again let me know what you think! thanks so much for reading!


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